T-Mobile US has agreed to buy more than $3 billion worth of 700MHz A-Block spectrum licenses from Verizon Wireless.

"The transactions, combined with T-Mobile’s existing A-Block holdings in Boston, will result in T-Mobile having important low-band spectrum in nine of the Top 10 and 21 of the Top 30 markets across the United States," T-Mobile said in an announcement today.

T-Mobile CEO John Legere called the deal "a great opportunity to secure low-band spectrum in many of the top markets in America."

The deal is pending approval from the Federal Communications Commission and Department of Justice, and it is expected to close mid-year. If approved, T-Mobile will give Verizon $2.365 billion in cash and transfer $950 million worth of its own AWS and PCS spectrum licenses to Verizon in exchange for the 700MHz airwaves.

Low-frequency spectrum is highly desired by carriers because it can generally cover bigger geographical areas than high-frequency spectrum. Additionally, low-frequency spectrum that is today allocated to broadcast TV will be auctioned in mid-2015.

T-Mobile said that after the purchase from Verizon, it "will have low-band spectrum covering approximately 158 million people—including New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Washington DC, and Detroit. T-Mobile anticipates rolling out service and compatible handsets on this A-Block spectrum as early as the fourth quarter of 2014."

T-Mobile said its LTE rollout in 2013 deployed 10+10 MHz (uplink and downlink) in 43 of the Top 50 metro areas and that it plans "substantive deployments of 20+20 MHz 4G LTE in 2014."

The spectrum being sold to T-Mobile was purchased by Verizon at auction in 2008. Verizon decided to sell it off in order to gain regulatory approval for a separate deal in which Verizon bought spectrum from Comcast, Time Warner, and Bright House. T-Mobile initially objected to that transfer but dropped its protest last year when Verizon agreed to a deal that culminated in today's sale announcement.

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This looks like a good deal for both companies when you look at the PDF presentation from T-mobile on their investor site. They basically give up 10Mhz of PCS or AWS in markets where they usually have 50-70Mhz already. In exchange they pick up 12 Mhz of 700Mhz A-Band. Not sure why the A-Block was so much more valuable than the PCS with the interference issues with Channel 51 still being ironed out.

The thing that bothers me most about this is that the FCC auctions off this spectrum and then companies are allowed to let it lie fallow for years. Yeah, Verizon made 38% profit or something. That part doesn't irk me as much as all that spectrum being unavailable to consumers since 2008. What a waste of a finite resource.

The next auction for H-Block or the 600Mhz auctions aught to include provisions that allow for claw-back when the spectrum is not used as intended within 18 months or something. Also, all auctions should be sold for 20 years or something as well. Carriers can't (realistically) argue they'll be using the same technology on those towers in 20 years time so it can be a way to recoup more money for the taxpayers and a spur to innovation when you resell and repurpose the spectrum in 20 years.

All this behind-closed-doors deal making with the wireless providers working with the government who is working with a different provider to make a deal happen makes me vaguely ill.

Theoretically, "we the people" own the airwaves. They are a public resource. TV stations got to use them pretty much for free for a long time, and now wireless companies are doing the same, except they bought the rights to use them at an auction. What did we all get in exchange for the rights to use all that wireless spectrum? A few pieces of silver? Do they get to use that spectrum forever? How long is the lease?

I wonder how things would be if the FCC wasn't around to regulate frequency use. The industry would probably have to create some mutual organization to manage the frequency space, probably similar to ICANN. Or we may have radically different radio technology, like smarter radios that automatically use whatever frequency is free.

I understand the need to trumpet bang-for-the-buck metro area coverage, but I'm curious to know what the impact will be on smaller communities. I'm angling for a transfer to a small town, where Verizon is the only carrier worth anything (while I'm on ATT - running a lonely and distant second - unlimited). Is there any chance that this could vault TM into the same second place realm as ATT in that town, or does this do squat for them?

Obviously they'd have to build out (TM doesn't have any towers nearby), but this sounds like they wouldn't need the towers to be that close - they could remain in the nearby city but now reach.

What did we all get in exchange for the rights to use all that wireless spectrum? A few pieces of silver? Do they get to use that spectrum forever? How long is the lease?

The lease terms are specified in the auction, and I want to say that recent auctions have generally had 99-year leases (but I might be wrong about that; I haven't double-checked.). Additionally, there are other conditions. One of those, common to all FCC license grants that I'm aware of, is that you have to demonstrate that you will actually use the spectrum, rather than simply hoard it. Given the nature of RF communication deployments, spectrum may not get used for years after an auction without any violation of the terms, but eventually, the FCC will politely ask what's going on, then less politely, and eventually they can revoke the license, reclaim the spectrum, and do whatever they like with it (presumably, re-auction it). I doubt this happens much, but it's within the FCC's powers.

We also get the ability to use all sorts of RF communications devices, which is pretty cool.

This looks like a good deal for both companies when you look at the PDF presentation from T-mobile on their investor site. They basically give up 10Mhz of PCS or AWS in markets where they usually have 50-70Mhz already. In exchange they pick up 12 Mhz of 700Mhz A-Band. Not sure why the A-Block was so much more valuable than the PCS with the interference issues with Channel 51 still being ironed out.

The thing that bothers me most about this is that the FCC auctions off this spectrum and then companies are allowed to let it lie fallow for years. Yeah, Verizon made 38% profit or something. That part doesn't irk me as much as all that spectrum being unavailable to consumers since 2008. What a waste of a finite resource.

The next auction for H-Block or the 600Mhz auctions aught to include provisions that allow for claw-back when the spectrum is not used as intended within 18 months or something. Also, all auctions should be sold for 20 years or something as well. Carriers can't (realistically) argue they'll be using the same technology on those towers in 20 years time so it can be a way to recoup more money for the taxpayers and a spur to innovation when you resell and repurpose the spectrum in 20 years.

This notion of lower frequency has greater range is not completely accurate. It dates back to "simple" radio where you used say a half wave antenna. Given a the same field strength in volts per meter, the lower frequency has a longer antenna, hence more signal strength. It is simply due to antenna aperture. But in a cell phone, the antenna is anything but a simple half wave.

There are differences in how the lower frequencies bounce around, knife edge diffraction, etc. Also how they penetrate buildings.

Lower frequency tends to be a little better, but it is not a be all end all.

I think I know the answer, but would love to know for sure... This will only benefit T-Mobile customers who purchase compatible handsets, correct? (edit: Are there any compatible handsets right now?) This is a long term play that will take a while to see benefits. (i.e., I'll see no gain using my Moto X.)

They mention rural coverage, but I'm only seeing a list of larger cities. Any chance this'll improve the frustrating situation of driving on the interstate with T-Mobile? (Going from Nashville to Orlando, I can only get usable data maybe a third of the time.)

I think I know the answer, but would love to know for sure... This will only benefit T-Mobile customers who purchase compatible handsets, correct? (edit: Are there any compatible handsets right now?) This is a long term play that will take a while to see benefits. (i.e., I'll see no gain using my Moto X.)

They mention rural coverage, but I'm only seeing a list of larger cities. Any chance this'll improve the frustrating situation of driving on the interstate with T-Mobile? (Going from Nashville to Orlando, I can only get usable data maybe a third of the time.)

As long as Tmobile rolls out radios/towers that support LTE over 700Mhz you're fine on your Moto X MotoX specs

I wonder how things would be if the FCC wasn't around to regulate frequency use. The industry would probably have to create some mutual organization to manage the frequency space, probably similar to ICANN. Or we may have radically different radio technology, like smarter radios that automatically use whatever frequency is free.

Your closest luddite grouch neighbor would be running a 1kw cell phone jammer that would make your phone unusable within a half mile of your house. The self centered jerk geek on the other end of the block would mod is router to transmit at 50W instead of 5 giving him 5 bars anywhere in his house and downing out the reception of everyone else on your block or your apartment building....

I think I know the answer, but would love to know for sure... This will only benefit T-Mobile customers who purchase compatible handsets, correct? (edit: Are there any compatible handsets right now?) This is a long term play that will take a while to see benefits. (i.e., I'll see no gain using my Moto X.)

They mention rural coverage, but I'm only seeing a list of larger cities. Any chance this'll improve the frustrating situation of driving on the interstate with T-Mobile? (Going from Nashville to Orlando, I can only get usable data maybe a third of the time.)

As long as Tmobile rolls out radios/towers that support LTE over 700Mhz you're fine on your Moto X MotoX specs

I am on a z10. I can see the Verizon and MetroPCS LTE. If you do a scan on your phone, you will know soon enough.

The TMobile LTE is fine in most areas. I've done 36mbps downloads in Marin. Slightly lower in the urban parts of the bay area, but generally 25 to 30 Mbps.

I wonder how things would be if the FCC wasn't around to regulate frequency use. The industry would probably have to create some mutual organization to manage the frequency space, probably similar to ICANN. Or we may have radically different radio technology, like smarter radios that automatically use whatever frequency is free.

You need the power of the government to enforce the licenses. Or do you want Verizon to arrest frequency violators?

I wonder how things would be if the FCC wasn't around to regulate frequency use. The industry would probably have to create some mutual organization to manage the frequency space, probably similar to ICANN. Or we may have radically different radio technology, like smarter radios that automatically use whatever frequency is free.

Your closest luddite grouch neighbor would be running a 1kw cell phone jammer that would make your phone unusable within a half mile of your house. The self centered jerk geek on the other end of the block would mod is router to transmit at 50W instead of 5 giving him 5 bars anywhere in his house and downing out the reception of everyone else on your block or your apartment building....

People already do both those things, and I don't see the FCC lining up to stop them...

I wonder how things would be if the FCC wasn't around to regulate frequency use. The industry would probably have to create some mutual organization to manage the frequency space, probably similar to ICANN. Or we may have radically different radio technology, like smarter radios that automatically use whatever frequency is free.

Your closest luddite grouch neighbor would be running a 1kw cell phone jammer that would make your phone unusable within a half mile of your house. The self centered jerk geek on the other end of the block would mod is router to transmit at 50W instead of 5 giving him 5 bars anywhere in his house and downing out the reception of everyone else on your block or your apartment building....

People already do both those things, and I don't see the FCC lining up to stop them...

The ARRL news publishes the names of spectrum violators. Thus isn't the kind of thing that makes any newspaper, with the exception of the GPS jammers that get caught, like that trucker near Newark airport.

I wonder how things would be if the FCC wasn't around to regulate frequency use. The industry would probably have to create some mutual organization to manage the frequency space, probably similar to ICANN. Or we may have radically different radio technology, like smarter radios that automatically use whatever frequency is free.

Your closest luddite grouch neighbor would be running a 1kw cell phone jammer that would make your phone unusable within a half mile of your house. The self centered jerk geek on the other end of the block would mod is router to transmit at 50W instead of 5 giving him 5 bars anywhere in his house and downing out the reception of everyone else on your block or your apartment building....

Really? You're implying that the only thing keeping us from chaos is a few laws and a couple of people in Washington? If that's your view of mankind, I really feel sorry for you.

I think I know the answer, but would love to know for sure... This will only benefit T-Mobile customers who purchase compatible handsets, correct? (edit: Are there any compatible handsets right now?) This is a long term play that will take a while to see benefits. (i.e., I'll see no gain using my Moto X.)

They mention rural coverage, but I'm only seeing a list of larger cities. Any chance this'll improve the frustrating situation of driving on the interstate with T-Mobile? (Going from Nashville to Orlando, I can only get usable data maybe a third of the time.)

As long as Tmobile rolls out radios/towers that support LTE over 700Mhz you're fine on your Moto X MotoX specs

If you expand the details it says "Lower 700 (AT&T) / band 17 USA", and if you click on "700" the glossary says "AT&T uses blocks B and C for its LTE network, which span a frequency range also known as band 17. ... Many phones designed for AT&T are designed for band 17, and therefore will not work on regional networks that use block A."

I wonder how things would be if the FCC wasn't around to regulate frequency use. The industry would probably have to create some mutual organization to manage the frequency space, probably similar to ICANN. Or we may have radically different radio technology, like smarter radios that automatically use whatever frequency is free.

Your closest luddite grouch neighbor would be running a 1kw cell phone jammer that would make your phone unusable within a half mile of your house. The self centered jerk geek on the other end of the block would mod is router to transmit at 50W instead of 5 giving him 5 bars anywhere in his house and downing out the reception of everyone else on your block or your apartment building....

Really? You're implying that the only thing keeping us from chaos is a few laws and a couple of people in Washington? If that's your view of mankind, I really feel sorry for you.

Uh, Lightsquared just spent $billions to try and do pretty much this exact thing; blare out GPS to put up their own 4G network. If there were no laws, it would be tempting to put it right over the GPS signals.

Before there was the FCC, that's exactly what happened. It literally was radio pandemonium and classic tragedy of the commons if you read histories about early radio technologies.

Now that we have telecom entities worth billions of dollars, they might be able to self-police, set up a trade body and try to squelch various rogue or pirate stations, but with no laws to shut down rogue transmitters it could very quickly devolve into a tragedy of the commons.

In London, NYC and other places there are people walking around with backpacks that are essentially portable FM radios blasting out their music/propaganda/whatever that they put right onto major commercial channels and push their content right on top for local users. If that wasn't illegal, I could easily set up a radio station at my house for <$1k that would give me a radio station for at least a couple of miles around my house.

I work in the RF community, and there are *lots* of times that I just wish that I could set up a link here or there for just a couple of minutes to test frequency response, check things out, etc. If it wasn't illegal, it would be awfully tempting to just do it...

I wonder how things would be if the FCC wasn't around to regulate frequency use. The industry would probably have to create some mutual organization to manage the frequency space, probably similar to ICANN. Or we may have radically different radio technology, like smarter radios that automatically use whatever frequency is free.

Your closest luddite grouch neighbor would be running a 1kw cell phone jammer that would make your phone unusable within a half mile of your house. The self centered jerk geek on the other end of the block would mod is router to transmit at 50W instead of 5 giving him 5 bars anywhere in his house and downing out the reception of everyone else on your block or your apartment building....

Really? You're implying that the only thing keeping us from chaos is a few laws and a couple of people in Washington? If that's your view of mankind, I really feel sorry for you.

Uh, Lightsquared just spent $billions to try and do pretty much this exact thing; blare out GPS to put up their own 4G network. If there were no laws, it would be tempting to put it right over the GPS signals.

...Now that we have telecom entities worth billions of dollars, they might be able to self-police, set up a trade body and try to squelch various rogue or pirate stations, but with no laws to shut down rogue transmitters it could very quickly devolve into a tragedy of the commons...

If you have even a passing familiarity with the history of telecommunications within the U.S. rather than your mostly optimistic statement above, I think you would have to agree that a far more likely outcome would be along the lines of:

I honestly wish we could expect, or even hold realistic hope, that it might be otherwise, but just look at today's headlines about AT&T. These guys view the Triangle Shirt Factory as having been run with "optimized managerial input mechanisms".

I wonder how things would be if the FCC wasn't around to regulate frequency use. The industry would probably have to create some mutual organization to manage the frequency space, probably similar to ICANN. Or we may have radically different radio technology, like smarter radios that automatically use whatever frequency is free.

Your closest luddite grouch neighbor would be running a 1kw cell phone jammer that would make your phone unusable within a half mile of your house. The self centered jerk geek on the other end of the block would mod is router to transmit at 50W instead of 5 giving him 5 bars anywhere in his house and downing out the reception of everyone else on your block or your apartment building....

Really? You're implying that the only thing keeping us from chaos is a few laws and a couple of people in Washington? If that's your view of mankind, I really feel sorry for you.

Uh, Lightsquared just spent $billions to try and do pretty much this exact thing; blare out GPS to put up their own 4G network. If there were no laws, it would be tempting to put it right over the GPS signals.

Before there was the FCC, that's exactly what happened. It literally was radio pandemonium and classic tragedy of the commons if you read histories about early radio technologies.

Now that we have telecom entities worth billions of dollars, they might be able to self-police, set up a trade body and try to squelch various rogue or pirate stations, but with no laws to shut down rogue transmitters it could very quickly devolve into a tragedy of the commons.

In London, NYC and other places there are people walking around with backpacks that are essentially portable FM radios blasting out their music/propaganda/whatever that they put right onto major commercial channels and push their content right on top for local users. If that wasn't illegal, I could easily set up a radio station at my house for <$1k that would give me a radio station for at least a couple of miles around my house.

I work in the RF community, and there are *lots* of times that I just wish that I could set up a link here or there for just a couple of minutes to test frequency response, check things out, etc. If it wasn't illegal, it would be awfully tempting to just do it...

And I'm a ham radio operator. I can do a lot of the things you would get in trouble for, within the ham space. However the first thing we *should* all do before camping out on a frequency and calling CQ is ask if the frequency is in use. If it is, we move on. Yes, there are ham radio police out there, but they can't be everywhere and certainly couldn't keep up if everyone just decided to violate good operating practice.

I also work for a cable company. We are required to monitor our plant for signal "leakage" and keep it below a certain threshold. As the 700Mhz band comes into use we're discovering a lot of our equipment isn't maintaining adequate RF shielding on those frequencies (the industry traditionally monitored the VHF aircraft band due to radio location beacons). So far the response from the wireless providers has been to let us know and work with us at locating and resolution. I'm sure if there's no resolution then they'll go to the FCC, but for now it's two entities working it out.

Look at it another way: I live in a town where there's lot of public land that I like to hike on. In many cases, the easiest way to get there is to cross private property. An added motivator is that the owners of the private property typically only use it for a few weeks a year, so they aren't likely to even know you were there. However the vast majority of people don't trespass on private property to get to the trails. Do I do this out of fear of getting shot? Because I'd have to climb a barbed wire fence (no fences)? No just because it's not my property.

My point was just to show that, in reality, there's no way for government to enforce spectrum abuses (or many other illegal activities, for that matter). Much like copyright, it's usually up to the user to alert the FCC when violation is discovered. And as long as the violator doesn't intentionally do it again there's little need to fine or otherwise get the bureau involved. Yes, fines do happen, but not very often.

That's a surprising amount of airspace around Denver they bought up. Most of that area is pretty darn empty, especially compared to the big areas of PA and NY they aren't getting. For that matter the Pacific Northwest is being left out in the cold entirely, not to mention Chicago.

That's a surprising amount of airspace around Denver they bought up. Most of that area is pretty darn empty, especially compared to the big areas of PA and NY they aren't getting. For that matter the Pacific Northwest is being left out in the cold entirely, not to mention Chicago.

They bought what Verizon had to offer; it looks like they probably bought all of VZWs lower A spectrum. If the want more they'll have to buy from other companies. US Cellular probably has the biggest chunk and are being slowly nibbled to death by rivals; CSpire/Cellular south have relatively large chunks of the band as well; other than that it's really messy with lots of companies having one or two blocks. I expect a bunch of smaller deals with companies you've never heard of as they try to gobble up a bit more one chunk at a time.

To see who has what, select the By-Band tab, and then the first band listed in the table:

It looks like the markets where T-Mobile is selling spectrum are where they already had 70+mhz available. Most are 90+mhz available. In some markets where they sold AWS or PCS, they gained 700, giving them an actual increase in spectrum. In other markets (like SFO), they lost spectrum, but they improved their holdings nonetheless thanks to SFO's notorious NIMBYs. Lower frequency spectrum means fewer towers in their back yards...

It looks like the markets where T-Mobile is selling spectrum are where they already had 70+mhz available. Most are 90+mhz available. In some markets where they sold AWS or PCS, they gained 700, giving them an actual increase in spectrum. In other markets (like SFO), they lost spectrum, but they improved their holdings nonetheless thanks to SFO's notorious NIMBYs. Lower frequency spectrum means fewer towers in their back yards...

Thanks. I wish VZW would put together a table similar to the one in the last side in TM's PDF. Because of how carriers can slice and dice licence areas into smaller parts in private deals it's hard to be sure; but it appears VZW was just bulking up in spectrum in some areas but not plugging any holes in its AWS/PCS coverage.

I still don't understand why wireless spectrum hasn't been deemed infrastructure. Every other time you hear "wireless" and "infrastructure" in the same sentence is that they need more spectrum to fix "infrastructure" problems. However, if wireless spectrum were an actual infrastructure network, we could have a robust wireless network with real interoperability between carriers.

I still don't understand why wireless spectrum hasn't been deemed infrastructure. Every other time you hear "wireless" and "infrastructure" in the same sentence is that they need more spectrum to fix "infrastructure" problems. However, if wireless spectrum were an actual infrastructure network, we could have a robust wireless network with real interoperability between carriers.

When I think of infrastructure, I have in mind facilities or systems that are fundamental to a business or social operation. In this sense, wireless spectrum is a resource rather than infrastructure, since spectrum is just the space in which one lays out their infrastructure. The infrastructure is the system of towers, antennas, transceivers, backhaul, etc., that comprises a cellular network.

Interoperability between carriers is hampered by many conditions, including:-fragmented spectrum, which results from a bunch of factors, not least is the complexity of coordinating frequency allocations among the many different users of different spectrum, particularly in light of recent advances in RF technology-the long-term effects of technology choices made decades ago, most obviously exemplified in the CDMA/GSM split in the USA-competitive factors, among which is the perception (I'm assuming that carriers feel this way, without any direct evidence) that being fully interoperable with other carriers is a disadvantage for each carrier. The persistence of network-locked phones is circumstantial evidence of this perception and strategy.

None of this makes cellular infrastructure any less infrastructure, IMO. It just makes it incompatible infrastructure, in the same way that having several different gauge railroad lines in a country doesn't make those railroad lines not infrastructure. It does cause substantial headaches for consumers, but in light of the features hampering interoperability in the US, I don't see any quick way out of the current situation.

I still don't understand why wireless spectrum hasn't been deemed infrastructure. Every other time you hear "wireless" and "infrastructure" in the same sentence is that they need more spectrum to fix "infrastructure" problems. However, if wireless spectrum were an actual infrastructure network, we could have a robust wireless network with real interoperability between carriers.

When I think of infrastructure, I have in mind facilities or systems that are fundamental to a business or social operation. In this sense, wireless spectrum is a resource rather than infrastructure, since spectrum is just the space in which one lays out their infrastructure. The infrastructure is the system of towers, antennas, transceivers, backhaul, etc., that comprises a cellular network.

Interoperability between carriers is hampered by many conditions, including:-fragmented spectrum, which results from a bunch of factors, not least is the complexity of coordinating frequency allocations among the many different users of different spectrum, particularly in light of recent advances in RF technology-the long-term effects of technology choices made decades ago, most obviously exemplified in the CDMA/GSM split in the USA-competitive factors, among which is the perception (I'm assuming that carriers feel this way, without any direct evidence) that being fully interoperable with other carriers is a disadvantage for each carrier. The persistence of network-locked phones is circumstantial evidence of this perception and strategy.

None of this makes cellular infrastructure any less infrastructure, IMO. It just makes it incompatible infrastructure, in the same way that having several different gauge railroad lines in a country doesn't make those railroad lines not infrastructure. It does cause substantial headaches for consumers, but in light of the features hampering interoperability in the US, I don't see any quick way out of the current situation.

While spectrum is intangible, it's nonetheless infrastructure, especially in the way it's currently doled out. Just like you cannot have an interstate system without roads, you cannot have a wireless network without spectrum.

Interoperability between carriers is only hampered by business and legal decisions; there is no technological reason you shouldn't be able to buy a single phone to use on whatever carrier. That has become completely clear with phones developed in the last few years that technically can be used on any carrier, it's just software restrants preventing you from taking it to another carrier (even from a GSM carrier to a CDMA one, or visa versa). The only restraint is whether or not the spectrum is supported by a phone's chipset, and that is becoming less of a hurdle.

And if spectrum were to be declared infrastructure, that would pave the way to make networks and carriers two separate industries and could eliminated the GSM/CDMA split. If it were infrastructure, that would allow the spectrum act more like the road system or internet. You could then sign up with any carrier and use the same network. Then you could buy whatever phone you wanted and not worry about what carrier you'd get stuck with. You would have to worry about where you can use the phone, but that's no different than what you had to worry about when deciding to buy a cheap dual-band GSM phone or a more expensive quad-band one a few years ago.

And with spectrum declared infrastructure, it very well could create competition. If any carrier can use any spectrum, it would give incentive to build out networks faster, because the network operators could be allowed have exclusive rights to operate spectrum getting to profit from anyone using the network in any given area, not just its own customers and any customers from competitors it has roaming agreements with. That could get someone (maybe not one of the big competitor, but someone. Not that it would matter if customers can use it regardless who built the network) to build out in less populated areas and we can have truly nationwide coverage.

Granted, there would have to be at least some regulation, particularly how much of the population can be covered by a signal network provider, but you would need that so that there isn't a duopoly covering 90% of the population giving little incentive for anyone to pick up the rest of the nation.

The incompatibility between carriers is a lot easier to overcome than the carriers want you to believe. In fact, there is really only one reason there is any incompatibility: software. That is easy to remove. Sure there is still a small problem with spectrum, your phone would have to support any given spectrum; however, if the wireless industry were to be ran like I've described, that would likely be a non-issue. We could have much more ubiquitous wireless network system if phones could connect to any tower indiscriminately of whose network it was near.

None of this makes cellular infrastructure any less infrastructure, IMO. It just makes it incompatible infrastructure, in the same way that having several different gauge railroad lines in a country doesn't make those railroad lines not infrastructure. It does cause substantial headaches for consumers, but in light of the features hampering interoperability in the US, I don't see any quick way out of the current situation.

While spectrum is intangible, it's nonetheless infrastructure, especially in the way it's currently doled out. Just like you cannot have an interstate system without roads, you cannot have a wireless network without spectrum.

Now I'm just confused. You tell me spectrum is infrastructure. Below, you're going to tell me that spectrum needs to be declared to be infrastructure (presumably by government), so that something-or-other will happen and everything will be great.

Quote:

Interoperability between carriers is only hampered by business and legal decisions; there is no technological reason you shouldn't be able to buy a single phone to use on whatever carrier. ...The only restraint is whether or not the spectrum is supported by a phone's chipset, and that is becoming less of a hurdle.

There's no technological reason you can't use a single phone...except that a phone's chipset might not support all bands. This sounds like a technological reason to me.

I get the feeling that when you say 'declare spectrum to be infrastructure' you really mean something like 'nationalize cellular infrastructure', or 'use eminent domain to confiscate spectrum licenses, tower hardware, backhaul, and whatever else is needed so that the government can build out a nationwide, single-band, single-technology cellular network'. If that's what you're getting at, then that's not what it means for something to be infrastructure. Yes, the government could, in some theoretical sense, do this. It's not going to happen for a whole lot of reasons, so I'm not particularly interested in arguing about it.

None of this makes cellular infrastructure any less infrastructure, IMO. It just makes it incompatible infrastructure, in the same way that having several different gauge railroad lines in a country doesn't make those railroad lines not infrastructure. It does cause substantial headaches for consumers, but in light of the features hampering interoperability in the US, I don't see any quick way out of the current situation.

While spectrum is intangible, it's nonetheless infrastructure, especially in the way it's currently doled out. Just like you cannot have an interstate system without roads, you cannot have a wireless network without spectrum.

Now I'm just confused. You tell me spectrum is infrastructure. Below, you're going to tell me that spectrum needs to be declared to be infrastructure (presumably by government), so that something-or-other will happen and everything will be great.

Quote:

Interoperability between carriers is only hampered by business and legal decisions; there is no technological reason you shouldn't be able to buy a single phone to use on whatever carrier. ...The only restraint is whether or not the spectrum is supported by a phone's chipset, and that is becoming less of a hurdle.

There's no technological reason you can't use a single phone...except that a phone's chipset might not support all bands. This sounds like a technological reason to me.

I get the feeling that when you say 'declare spectrum to be infrastructure' you really mean something like 'nationalize cellular infrastructure', or 'use eminent domain to confiscate spectrum licenses, tower hardware, backhaul, and whatever else is needed so that the government can build out a nationwide, single-band, single-technology cellular network'. If that's what you're getting at, then that's not what it means for something to be infrastructure. Yes, the government could, in some theoretical sense, do this. It's not going to happen for a whole lot of reasons, so I'm not particularly interested in arguing about it.

Are you saying Washington doesn't redefine words? A word is a word unless you're talking to a lawyer. At which point, it's whatever they decide it is. Don't believe me? Look at just about any law and you'll see a list of words, with a definition that may not correspond to that of any dictionary. The word "spectrum" doesn't get special treatment in Washington; it, like all other words, means whatever lawmakers want it to mean.

You're trying to split hairs where there are no hairs to split. If you choose to buy a device that doesn't support what you want, that's not a technological problem, it's a personal problem. Buying a phone that can work on any carrier is possible. Whether or not you want to pay the price for it is up to you.

No, I mean declare spectrum to be infrastructure. While spectra is intangible, it's all around us. Radio towers are used to shape spectra to a form that we use; they don't create it. Therefore spectra technically is infrastructure. And if it were to be declared infrastructure, the government wouldn't need to confiscate anything, because it could dictate how it is used.

And why would we want a single-band, single-technology cellular network? If all spectrum was used to run on a single band, you would have great penetration through objects, but it wouldn't matter because you'd need another broadcast tower on the other side to compensate of the range of wideband radio. It would be much more effective to use several bands that way you can have use of both long-range, and high-penetration in the same device. Plus you could phase out old technology gradually, obsoleting phones over time eliminating use of one band at a time so you can upgrade as technology progresses while still giving people time to make the upgrade more at their pace.